I don’t know what happened all of a sudden to make Christopher McQuarrie a sought-after name, because the guy has been around seemingly forever, having worked on “The Usual Suspects” back in 1995 with Bryan Singer, and he wrote and directed his first movie “Way of the Gun” in 2000. I guess the moderate success of 2012’s “Jack Reacher” with Tom Cruise has increased his visibility.

Besides officially signing on to direct Cruise again on “Mission Impossible 5″, McQuarrie was recently tapped to adapt the Japanese anime “Star Blazers” for Skydance Productions. Now comes word that he’ll also direct the movie as well.

“Star Blazers” is set in the future, with “Earth’s atmosphere [having] been obliterated by a distant alien race, and the survivors have one year before radiation will reach their underground refuge and wipe out the human race. The survivors get a shot of hope in the form of alien technology that can deliver a small crew across the universe and back with the means to stave off extinction.”

“Star Blazers” is, of course, the American title for the Japanese long-running TV animated show “Space Battleship Yamato”, which was recently turned into a big-budget movie in Japan in 2010. You can check out a trailer for that one below, and maybe get an idea of what the American version will look like (but with, you know, Western actors):